78 percent as recurrent expenditure in April: Finance

A copy of the 2019 State Budget of Maldives. FILE PHOTO: HUSSAIN WAHEED / MIHAARU

Ahmed Aiham

09 May 2019, MVT 18:05

Ministry of Finance, on Thursday, noted that 78 percent of state expenditure for the previous month was spent on recurrent costs of the administration.

According to official statistics, recurrent expenditure for April stood at MVR 5.9 billion, which includes MVR 3.2 billion as salaries, wages and pensions, and MVR 2.3 billion for administrative and operational expenses.

On the other hand, MVR 1.5 billion was spent on Capital Expenditure, including MVR 655 million spent on Public Service Investment Programmes (PSIP), MVR 104 million for procuring machinery and equipment, and MVR 462 million utilised for development projects and investments outlays.

While MVR 7.5 billion was spent by President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih's administration so far, the state has generated a revenue of MVR 7.9 billion. The budget for 2019 is MVR 30.2 billion.

In recent years, recurrent spending has consistently been the highest source of state expenditure. During the past five years, there have been minimal efforts to correct the problem that more state funds are used for day-to-day operations of the government instead of development projects.